Nate shared this quote with me while we were at Back Porch this morning and it is so applicable to now and so applicable to our work through MYC. This week in asana practice, I would like to encourage you to keep the below mindset, whether you have been practice for years or days, it doesn't matter. Its the same. Look at the way you show up on the mat, look at how you treat your self, measure your joy and your ability to focus and stay present, what triggers you? What could you do to find balance? "The conversation is not so much about the future for the community, but is the future itself. A parallel way to think of this is to consider the meaning of a yoga practice. Anyone beginning yoga struggles with the postures and cannot help but feel inadequate, have doubts about their body, and think the purpose of the practice is the core strength & flexibility it produces, or not. We are told - and sometimes get - that even the way we breathe can be a pathway to a better life.

All this is true, but the larger insight, the meta-goal, is to realize that "how you do the (yoga on the) mat is how you do your life." That the practice of yoga itself is life. Creating good postures, breathing, and flexibility are simply fringe benefits. Its is your way of doing the practice itself that is the breakthrough, not some future moment in which a better state of being is accomplished. This way there is nothing to wait for, no future of objective measure of accomplishment to be attained.

The same with certain conversations. Holding them in a restorative context - one of possibility, generosity, and gifts, in relationship with others - is as much the transformation as any place that those conversations might lead you. The right small group conversation releases aliveness and intention into the community. This creates the condition where the symptoms and fragmentation and breakdown can be healed. It is only within this context and communal aliveness that our skill at problem solving will make the difference." 

-Community: the Structure of Belonging, Peter Block

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classes | see schedule private sessions | contact yogakatbend@mac.com upcoming special classes | workshops | events >for details or to register  VasuDeva | Friday Jan 29 | 7-9pm @Bend Yoga VasuDeva Shivaratri Celebration | Friday Feb 12 | 6-late @MYC Yoga in Action: Experiencing Interconnection  with Aleta Raphel-Brock, Lucius Wheeler & Kat Seltzer Saturday Feb 13 | 10am-12pm @Bend Yoga  Living Yoga Teacher Training – 200hr Yoga Alliance Certification April – Sept 2010 Rhythm of Life Nicaragua Retreat with Kat Seltzer & friends May 21-27, 2011 

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